“I Just Don’t Believe It!”
Good Morning Friends,
The sermon on Sunday inspired some and disturbed others. One was left with the feeling that someone was lying to us. Well that has happened before. The topic was Creationism vs. Evolution. The debate is typically not the pulpit topic on a Sunday in the PCUSA churches. I do not have enough time to address the whole subject here so I can only touch on a few items. Suffice to say as an introduction that the sermon did not prompt the harmony of science and faith. But perhaps that was not its agenda. The sermon was cleverly entitled with the double edged meaning of the phrase, “I Just Don’t Believe It!”
Scripture: In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
6 And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. 8 God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
9 And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so.12 The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so.16 God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17 God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
20 And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” 21 So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
27 So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” 29 God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Genesis 1 (NRSV)
It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
Lamentations 3:26 (NIV)
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.”
Psalms 119:105 (NIV)
“My son, do not forget my teaching, and keep my commands in your heart.” Proverbs 3:1 (NIV)
Lamech said to his wives, “Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me and a young man for injuring me.”
Genesis 4:23 (NIV)
Message: Contrary to popular opinion, Genesis Chapters 1-11 is for me not a simple historical narrative. For me it reads differently from other scripture, for me it answers the question of Who and Why but is really not concerned about the How as much as some would lead us to belive. I see in it figurative and poetic language, metaphors, and highly symbolic numbers that is unique in all the Bible. To understand it I believe we need to think in more of a Hebrew mind set. We are not use to thinking in this way. For example the narrative voice in Chapter 2 tells us in a kind of pun that humanity (the Hebrew word adam) is called adam because God made him from adamah (ground or dust). The most common form of Hebrew poetry is called parallelism. Parallelism is when the writer says one thing in two or more different ways. The Psalms and Proverbs are filled with these such as the examples above. The first part of the verse is paralleled with the second part. These verses are not saying two different things, rather, one thing in multiple ways. The creation stories uses a lot of parallelisms. Before you make a judgment on whether Genesis is figurative or literal be humble enough to realize that Hebrew is not your native language and for most, it is not a language you even understand…it is foreign. It is critical here to understand that modern western thinkers view events in step logic. This is the idea that each event comes after the previous forming a series of events in a linear timeline. But, the Hebrews did not think in step logic but in block logic. This is the grouping together of similar ideas together and not in chronological order. Most people read Genesis from a step logic perspective or chronological, rather than from the block logic so prevalent in Hebrew poetry. Making that mistake may well prompt us to miss something very important.
John Stott, a theologian, took this position in his book Understanding the Bible: “What may we say about the ‘how’ of God’s creative activity. Not many Christians today find it necessary to defend the concept of a literal six-day creation, for the text does not demand it, and scientific discovery appears to contradict it. The biblical text presents itself not as a scientific treatise but as a highly stylized literary statement (deliberately framed in three pairs, the fourth “day” corresponding to the first, the fifth to the second, and the sixth to the third). Moreover, the geological evidence for a gradual development over thousands of millions of years seems conclusive. …”
“It is most unfortunate that some who debate this issue (evolution) begin by assuming that the words “creation” and “evolution” are mutually exclusive. If everything has come into existence through evolution, they say, then biblical creation has been disproved, whereas if God has created all things, then evolution must be false. It is, rather, this naïve alternative which is false. It presupposes a very narrow definition of the two terms, both of which in fact have a wide range of meanings, and both of which are being freshly discussed today…”
Pray we have a balanced and thinking faith. Pray we use our rational, moral, social and spiritual faculties to experience the divine stamp. Pray we reflect the image that is life that is love that is the light of Christ. Pray we have a faith strong enough to help us believe that Christ died for us and defeated death so we might live in what really matters.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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